The polytechnic secondary school, officially ten-class general educational polytechnic secondary school, abbreviation POS, pronounced P-O-S, was the standard type of school in the school system of East Germany. The POS was established in 1959 to replace the hitherto existing Grundschule. The school structure was a ten-class comprehensive school without any internal or external differentiation. There was a final examination at the end of the 10th grade called Abschlußprüfung, granting the Abschlußzeugnis which allowed to continue one´s education to vocational training. Students with very good achievements at school were admitted to college studies or a unique education program that combined the studies of the extended secondary school and a vocational training. Students with honors got entrance to the extended polytechnic secondary school. The general style of teaching was a rather strict and authoritative version of different, highly efficient techniques of classroom management, used long before Jacob Kounin described this concept in the USA in 1974.
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